FRANKLIN—In his 37 years of living in Franklin, Dewey Davis has never seen what he experienced Friday night.
On Friday night, more than 5,000 turned out for what they all believed would be the Franklin Community Christmas Parade.
“I was a little concerned when the parade started and men wearing only red Umbros came dancing down the street. I can’t believe the city did this, with the number of diverse persons from many local organizations, and citizens innocently attending for what we all believed would be the Christmas parade,” said a concerned Davis. “They were just parading all up and down this street, singing and touching each other… most of them had as little clothing as possible.”
Franklin did plan a Christmas parade this year, as well as planned its first ever gay pride parade. A committee representing a dozen groups, including the City of Franklin, organized both of this year’s parades.
The mix-up occurred when the bulletins and fliers were made for the Christmas parade. “We got our dates crossed on the fliers” said an anonymous Franklin official. “The pride parade was always set for this date, but the wrong date on the fliers led to radio, newspapers and everything else to run with the wrong dates. I’m truly sorry to anyone who came thinking they were going to see a fully clothed Santa tonight but instead had to see his definitely naughty elves.”
The pride parade featured 75 local members of the gay community, which included about 20 floats and five totally fabulous high school kids.
“We were pretty pissed,” local resident Sam Edwards said. “It was very shameful of the participants and some of the spectators seemed generally intrigued — it’s the worst thing I’ve seen in all my years.”
“It was a great event,” added Scottie Sodom, chairman of the Fancy Pants Dance committee. “This was the first time it was a pure joy. It was just a really super gay experience.”
Organizers plan to keep next year’s parades on opposite ends of the calendar.
“I guess there was some confusion, people looked pretty confused when the Fantabulous Costume Competition began. I guess they’ve never seen anything like this.” Sodom said.
Edwards agreed.
“I would like to think the Christmas parade being thought to be Friday night made it a big draw,” Sodom said. “They’ll never be able to go back to the way things were around here.”
Davis also called the parade shocking.
“It showed that it is something that has never taken place,” he said. “I traveled the whole distance of the parade route and saw the disgust, enthusiasm, and shock of the spectators as they watched the prancing number of entrants.”
“I thought that Bruno’s appearance brought confusion to many of the youth, but as I looked deeper at the picture, I think that many of the adults seemed to lose it too when he appeared,” he continued.
“Either way, I’ll never look at a pair of Umbro soccer shorts the same way again.”